Chapter 13

Agena on Trial

[297] Manned space flight and NASA faced the new year of
1966 in an ambiguous position. High achievement had marked 1963, capped by the
exciting and important "76" mission at the very end of the year. But the key to
more sophisticated missions, the Agena, was in serious technical trouble. Only
with Agena could Gemini hope to realize a range of still-to-be-attained goals -
docking, re-rendezvous, rendezvous with two separate targets during a single
mission, and high-altitude flight goals that would be indispensable to Apollo,
the program to land men on the Moon. But many doubted that Agena could be ready
in time to meet Gemini's tight launch schedules. Year's end saw Agena's career
in manned space flight once again called into question - and this time a
substitute target had already been approved for development.

Agena, though most critical, was not the only problem. Extravehicular
activity (canceled in the three previous missions) was supposedly ready to enter
a more advanced stage. Unexpected development troubles demanded a last-minute
effort (reminiscent of Gemini IV) to qualify equipment. Edward White had
succeeded in his "space walk," but NASA faced a tougher EVA task - testing the
Air Force's Astronaut Maneuvering Unit (AMU), a far more complex personal
propulsion system than White had used. Step-by-step progress having been
skipped, the EVA set for Gemini VIII in mid-March had to bridge the gap.

At the beginning of 1966, then, the Gemini program had met with success in
seven straight missions, five with crews aboard. [298] Not all its goals had
been attained, but many had. Now the Apollo program neared its operational
stage. Might NASA halt Gemini to concentrate on Apollo? Administrator James Webb
had used similar reasoning to conclude Project Mercury earlier than many
desired. Although George Mueller, Associate Administrator for Manned Space
Flight, knew of no move afoot to close down Gemini, he foresaw that many
engineers in Houston might worry that they were nearly out of jobs. To assuage
their misgivings, in December 1965 he made a case for flying all 12 Gemini
missions. Even a cursory glance at the program's aims, Mueller said, showed
healthy returns for nearly every item. While medical fears had been erased by
the outcome of 14 days in space, NASA still needed to perfect techniques for
rendezvous and extravehicular activities. Then, too, an experienced cadre of
flight crews was essential, not only for flying missions but for astronaut and
flight control training as well. LeRoy Day, Mueller's Deputy Director for
Gemini, passed this reassurance on to Gemini Program Manager Charles Mathews in
Houston.1
That potential morale threat allayed, the engineers could focus on such
technical problems as making Agena work.